8 Best Tips to Stay Slim & Healthy

At Amrita we do not pretend that there is a «magic pill» for weight loss. It is obvious that if you eat junk food, lead a sedentary lifestyle and in total consume more calories than you spend, you are not going to lose weight. So we decided to outline a number of dietary and lifestyle recommendations for you to maximize your weight loss.

First of all, you need to follow the 8 «golden» rules:

1. «Calories in — calories out»: eat less calories than you spend.

In order to do create a daily calorie deficitfirst you need to learn what your daily calorie intake requirements are. They depend on your basal metabolic rate (which in turn depends on your genetics, age, gender and health condition) and your activity level during the day. There are plenty of basal metabolic rate (BMR) calculators out there on the internet, so you can figure it out quite easily.

After you have figured out the number of «calories out», you need to start tracking your «calories in», or what you consume in food and drink during the day.This is very important to do when you are trying to lose weight and do not have extensive knowledge and experience of nutritional values of the food you consume. After you become a «pro» at counting calories, you’ll be able to judge your daily calorie intake quite accurately, but while you are a «novice» it’s best to track your calories. Again, there are plenty of calorie calculators out there.

2. Do strength training and interval training.

Building muscle is of a huge importance when trying to increase metabolism and lose weight. That is because muscle tissue requires more energy to be maintained and burns more calories throughout the day than fat tissue. If you have more muscle, you burn more calories even while you sleep. Start easy on yourself if you have never done strength training before, though, to avoid injury.

Doing regular cardio exercise is also very important for weight loss. But not all cardio is created equal. For example, steady-state cardio, although it does burn fat well, in most cases results in increased hunger pangs and cravings for food, which the majority of people find hard to resist. As a result, the fat-burning effect of steady-state cardio is compensated or even overcompensated by consuming excessive calories. It is best to perform interval training type of cardio (short periods of high intensity alternating with periods of lower intensity). Interval training has an even better fat-burning potential than steady-state cardio while not leading to the same outbursts of hunger later during the day.

3. Eat «clean»: cut out junk food and excess sugar and salt.

Junk food («quick» processed foods) are not only bad for you because they are loaded with calories (mostly from fat and carbohydrates), but also because it contains a lot of «chemicals» such as preservatives, artificial colorings, sweeteners, taste and smell enhancers and so on. All these additives, which make junk food taste good, are detrimental to your health and wreak havoc on your metabolism, contributing to weight gain in many different ways. So to stay on top of your health it is best to avoid these foods completely.

4. Drink water. Just do it!

There is no need to once again stress the importance of drinking water: it helps your body to stay hydrated, makes you feel more «satiated» and therefore eat less, and helps to remove toxins from your body. There is no specific number of liters you should drink per day — it depends on your body mass, the climate you live in, how much you exercise and your individual metabolism. However, the general «rule of thumb» is that you should drink 1.5-2 liters if you are of an average build, not a professional athlete, and live in moderate or cold climates and 2-3 liters if you live in hot climates and / or exercise heavily and frequently.

5. Have a good night’s sleep.

Good sleep is hugely important to maintain a healthy hormone balance: it lowers Cortisol (the «stress» hormone, which makes you store fat especially around your belly), increases levels of Leptin (hormone, which makes you feel satiated and less hungry) and releases Human Growth Hormone, responsible for regeneration processes, muscle growth and keeping you young and healthy. On the other hand, a lack of or inadequate sleep throws your body into a metabolic «havoc», causes stress and may lead to overeating and weight gain.

6. Reduce alcohol to an absolute minimum, or cut it out completely.

There is still not enough information in the scientific community to determine a definite «safe» amount of alcohol that a man or a woman can drink during a day. In fact there are official recommendations which differ from country to country. However, to stay completely «safe» and to really maximize your weight loss efforts it is best that you cut out alcohol from your diet completely. Not only does alcohol in itself high in calories, but it messes up your hormones, in particular increases estrogen (the «female hormone») in your system, leading to all kinds of «surprises» such as cellulite, fat around the midriff area and even breast tissue in men!

7. Stay active!

Sedentary lifestyle is today’s number one evil after junk food as far as weight gain is concerned. We don’t move half as much these days as we are supposed to. So do whatever you can to get off the couch/chair and start moving. Do a small jog in the morning or just go for a walk for 30 minutes. Get on a bike and go cycling after work with your kids. Take a spin class, join a yoga studio, or just dance in front of the mirror at home. The key here is to move every day and make it a compromise-free part of your daily routine.

8. Supplement wisely

It is so easy to get lost in the vast amount of information and advertising of different supplements and multivitamins. However, the first thing you need to know is that there is no «one-cure-all» pill. All mass market multivitamins usually «overdose» on those vitamins which we already take in adequate amounts with food (such as Vitamin C), and underdose on the ones which we do not get enough of with food (such as vitamin D). It would simply be impossible to fit all the recommended daily amounts of micronutrients into a single (or even several) pills. Moreover, it is not necessary. One should first of all figure out what his or her particular issues with health are and target those issues individually with a good-quality herbal supplement. This is exactly our approach at Amrita: we carefully develop our 100% natural and organic herbalformulas to target a specific issue a person may have, be it weight loss or detox or joint health. In each formula we use a mixture of different herbs (all organically grown) that are best known for their healing properties concerning each particular issue.

Like our articles? Try our Home Wellness Programmes!

Our program provides effective and practical strategies to clean your body of harmful toxins as well as facilitate weight loss. The program is based on 100% natural herbs and is designed for sustainable weight loss and weight management afterwards.